How Choosing the Right Cloud Services Vendor Can Help You Become Secure and Compliant

By now you may have heard that moving your systems and data to the cloud can be very good for your business. What you may not yet know is how to get compliant with various regulations that your industry may impose on your business, and which cloud vendors can help you achieve these goals.

Can I really become compliant if I move my data and systems to the Cloud?

Yes this can be done!

Some people feel that moving to the cloud means they have to give up proper security and that their systems will be less secure and non-compliant once they are hosted in a cloud providers environment.

Now, it may be true that if you don’t ask the right questions of a cloud provider, you may not get the “white-glove” service that you deserve, or the important features and capabilities that you need to have. Have you ever heard the saying that “you get what you pay for”?

Well, when it comes to migrating to the cloud, you not only need to ensure you get a good deal overall, but you also must ensure you ask the right questions of the provider you choose, to ensure that they understand your needs and can fulfill them.

If you properly plan your migration of your systems to the cloud, you may be able to achieve real compliance and enhanced security even easier than you could if you left those same systems within your own data center.

A properly designed cloud hosting infrastructure can not only help you become and remain compliant, but can also provide a great deal of security of your operations that you may have not had in the past.

It takes planning, and an understanding of what services a cloud provider like WHOA.com can offer you that makes the daunting task of meeting compliance regulations something that can be within your reach.

There are many requirements that you may have to comply with, including PCI DSS, HIPAA, and more. Sometimes, you may have to even comply with more than one of these at a time, especially if you handle sensitive data and charge your customers via credit card payments for the services you provide!

Why having a secure, and compliant cloud provider is important?

In today’s world, your business is under increasing scrutiny via compliance mandates that have to be met in order to remain in business. The fines for non-compliance can be huge and can lead to your company not being allowed to continue operations or accept payments via certain payment channels.

As it relates to security, if your systems and the data you are entrusted with are not secured properly, these systems can be hacked and your data can be stolen by hackers or your competition.

The resulting damage to your brand can mean that your customers no longer trust you to protect their data properly, leading to reduced sales, reputational hard for your company name, and reduced value of your company to potential inventors and business partners.

It’s vital that the data you rely on, and the data that your customers entrust you with, is secured, available, and securely backed up. This means finding a cloud provider that can secure your data in transit and at rest via data encryption. Your data needs to be backed up, and even those backups need to be properly secured! You also need to have assurances that your cloud provider can help protect your systems and your data from the constant barrage of cyber threats.

How do I get started?

To get started, be sure you only deal with vendors that have a deep understanding of compliance regulations, cyber security, and who can help you design the proper solution for your business. WHOA.com has experts in their fields who can help you ensure you get the proper level of secure compliant systems in place and ready for you to migrate your current systems to.

Next, it’s important that you know what data is most important to you, and which systems are critical for your continued operation of your company. Moving this data and these systems to a cloud provider can turn into a greater realization of operational efficiencies and enhanced security as well as true auditable compliance if done properly.

In short, choosing the proper cloud provider can mean the difference between you achieving the security and compliance goals that you require, or leaving your systems open to attack from those that want to steal your data or bring your systems and your company to its knees.